


and every breath we drew was hallelujah

by exhaustedwerewolf



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Death, Critical Role Relationship Week 2018, Gen, Impulsive 3AM Posting, Intrusive Thoughts, Percy Has Issues, Resurrection, Scene Rewrite, Singing, The Kill Box, You might notice I am kinda late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 15:05:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15294084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exhaustedwerewolf/pseuds/exhaustedwerewolf
Summary: After the fight with Kevdak, Pike and Keyleth struggle to mitigate the damage. Percy doesn't believe he can do anything to help.





	and every breath we drew was hallelujah

**Author's Note:**

> "There's a blaze of light in every word  
> It doesn't matter which you heard  
> The holy or the broken hallelujah"  
> \- Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen

Percy’s veins are still pulsing with the thrill of the fight, and with every heartbeat, his side throbs with pain from where he has just pulled out the blade. His breaths have a sharp edge, a hiss to them, but more importantly- his gun is broken. It is this which he feels most acutely- the knowledge casts a shadow over all else, turns the weight of the metal in his hand heavy and burdensome. Until he fixes it, all he has is the sword, otherwise he’s defenceless, and even with it, practically useless- until he fixes it, he won’t be able to breathe properly, think painlessly-

“Do you have anything that can heal the little boy, or- bring him back?” Scanlan’s call makes him look up- his voice is uncharacteristically quiet, sombre. Percy screws shut his eyes for a moment, willing away the echolalia of _the gun, the gun, the gun,_ before he approaches the bard. His boots clatter on the rubble, sending stones skittering; the sounds of his movement reverberate eerily in the newly silent square. Keyleth, too, has raised her head, and begins picking her way towards them, as Pike straightens up, bloodied gauntlets clasped firmly around her right arm with a fierceness that makes the small part of Percy's brain that didn't break when the gun did stir with worry. 

Reaching Scanlan, Percy follows his gaze- and the sight he is met with is gruesome enough that for an instant, his mind goes ice water clear. The boy has been _halved _ _-___ leaving a tangle of innards spilling from the ragged tear, stained almost black in places with the sheer volume of blood- there’s lashings of it, thick and dark and shiny. Here and there, bones jut out like white teeth, snapped or shattered, piercing flesh. His pupils are still blown wide in terror, fixed unseeing now on the pale sky. If Percy leant down, the blood would still be warm. Despite himself, despite everything- a little bile rises in his throat, but it is nothing to choke it back down.

“Pike? Ke- Key?” Scanlan asks, as the pair arrive. “Anything?”

Keyleth’s hands are already aglow, firefly gold with healing magic, as she draws near, but when she catches sight of the boy- the _body,_ Percy tells himself- the light at her fingertips goes out with that in her eyes.

“He’s beyond the point of return…” She murmurs, laying a hand on Scanlan’s shoulder.

As Pike steps up to join them, Percy notices a thin ribbon of blood has traced its way from the corner of her lip to her chin, and the grimace, the barely-there twist to her mouth. She looks upon the boy, though, as if blind to all else around her.

“I could…” She trails off.

“Resurrect him, or something?” Scanlan asks, breaking from Keyleth to draw closer to her, voice high and hopeful. Pike nods, and takes a shaky breath- then sinks to the ground at the boy’s side, kneeling in the pool of blood without hesitation. She removes her gauntlets, one hand going to her holy symbol, the other to the boy’s broken collarbone, and a gentle radiance, pulsing like a sleepy heartbeat, shines from her palms. The clouds part as she does this, _coincidence,_ Percy thinks- the shafts of sunlight that illuminate her are whiteish and pale. Keyleth joins her, dropping to one knee as if for an accolade. Where her palms meet the earth, plants begin to emerge- clover sprouts through the gaps between the cobblestones, long stemmed dandelions unwind, unfurl yellow petals. These too, seem to blink with light, in time with Pike’s radiant energy.

Quite abruptly feeling intrusive, Percy averts his eyes, takes a half-step back. The memory of the last resurrection ritual he witnessed blossoms suddenly and starkly in his mind as blood from a bullet wound. The shattering of the glass- he could barely see her by the milky light of Zahra’s moonstone, but that sound had been deafening, was seared into his mind now and forever- and he didn’t wish to hear it again.

“I’m going to sit and fix my gun.” He informs Scanlan, in a voice just above a whisper, but before he can turn away, Scanlan makes an incredulous, desperate sort of noise.

“That’s- more important than healing a kid.” There is a bitterness buried beneath the tone of bewilderment, and in his dark eyes, that catches Percy off guard. Later, he’ll wonder with something close to guilt if Scanlan had been thinking of Kaylie, but for now, his heart hasn’t slowed down, and with the shattering of the glass still echoing in his ears, he rounds on the gnome.

“I- What am I gonna do?” He asks, and his words turn harsh, cold, faster than he had hoped. “ _Tinker_ him back to life?”

Scanlan responds with an inscrutable, disappointed sort of look that Percy can’t interpret and turns to watch the ritual. With a surge of confusion- an emotion that erupts in Percy, as it usually does, with boiling frustration, searing resentment- he wrenches around, turning his back on the scene to stalk away, grip on his gun white-knuckled.

Finding a fairly even patch of dirt, he sits heavily in a cross-legged position. He takes a breath that is shallower than it was meant to be, and sets about fixing his _fucking_ gun, laying it down in front of him, alongside the necessary tools he dug from his pockets. His hands have started to shake, which only serves to irritate him further- his movements turn sharp with impatience. He is acutely aware of the uncomprehending gazes of about a dozen too many strange goliaths, all roughly one-hundred feet too close, and the sounds of the ritual are impossible to block out completely- the gusty, breezelike whisper of Keyleth’s magic and the high, oscillating chime of Pike’s remain distracting, even at a distance, but still the internal mantra- the ache of a lost limb- _you’re dead weight until you fix the damned gun_ \- drowns it out. Or at least, it does, until Pike begins to sing.

The first time Percy heard Pike sing, he finally understood why voices were described as sweet. Her tone isn’t saccharine, though, it’s clear and clean as spring sunlight dancing on ocean water. There is a strength to her voice, an intrinsic tide-like force- one could pick her out if she were to sing amongst a choir under normal circumstances- but she is singing in Celestial, and there’s a power to the language itself. Celestial turns faith itself, _or lack thereof,_ into a physical thing- a ghostly organ; an aching pair of lungs, a stammering heart- it’s a powerful, visceral sensation, and Percy is shaken to the core.

 _You speak Celestial._ His brain supplies, unhelpfully. This is yet another completely ___irrelevant___ fact that he is wildly, screamingly aware of. He recognises the hymn, or recalls one like it, reverberating within Pelor’s walls, his eyes on the false clouds of the ceiling mural, his mind half on something else, the voice of Cassandra beside him teasing and, in hindsight, lovely in its unloveliness-

He looks to Pike then, without thinking to, and finds himself looking on a woman more angelic than any that could be found in a mural, her white hair pinkish with blood and falling in her bruised face, her armor spattered with gore- a young planetar, baptised in red and gold.

He looks back to his gun and his tools, set out neatly in the dirt. Shuts his eyes, which only makes the pull of the current more potent, opens his eyes again, finds his gaze soft, unfocused.

 _Oh, fuck it,_ he thinks.

Standing up without another glance at his things, he dusts himself off, catching a gash roughly with his own fingers. He winces internally, struggling to keep his expression blank. Still determinedly ignoring the goliaths, he heads back over to the body.

He’s got a reputation to maintain, so he makes a point of clipping Scanlan on his way past. The bard opens his mouth- to ask a question or to complain, Percy doesn’t pause to find out.

This near to the body, he can feel the magic crackling in the air like static. There’s something vaguely threatening about the electrifying hum, that sends a prickle of old, familiar fear under his skin. But Pike and Keyleth’s magics are so intimate to him by now, it’s easy to forget that they are volatile, easy to convince himself that their magic would never, could never, hurt him.

He is closer now then he came the first time; the meaty smell of entrails is nauseating. Hearing his footfalls, Keyleth cracks open one eye, gives him a half smile of acknowledgement. Pike is too focused, tears beading at the corner of her eyes as she sings, and the gentle reverence with which her lips shape the words reminds Percy of how she looks at prayer, in private.

Percy lets her keep going for a few more bars as he summons up the courage, as he struggles to remember the way you’re supposed to breathe. He allows himself a shuddery, almost silent sigh, and then, mid-verse, he opens his mouth-

At the sound of his voice, Pike’s eyes open- they are as blue as the sky of the remembered mural, and one exhausted tear slips, trickles down her cheek, carving a trail through the blood. But her eyes meet his and they are as bright with pride as her symbol is with her own radiance, and Percy’s voice falters when he sees her look at him like _that,_ with softness, with profound _love-_ like he is worth loving, worth Pike’s love- he feels his soul spasm, well up inside him, stick in his throat.

He does his best to harmonise, uplift, lend what strength he can- but truth be told, he is following her lead, and he had forgotten what it felt like, to sing alongside another, to be one voice in a chorus, the sense of purpose, of usefulness- a necessary gear in a beautiful machine- and he lets his own eyes close, lets the music wash over him without trying to resist now-

And he’s never had time for the Gods- _like they’ve ever seemed to have time for him-_ but if you asked him right then, he’d say he heard it- a third voice, Her voice, all melody and mercy, like nothing he’s ever heard- and maybe he’s not hearing it at all, it wouldn’t be the first time he’s lost his mind, but- _oh, Gods, it hurts, it’s too much,_ but it’s pleasure-pain and he couldn’t stop if he wanted to-

And then they reach the final verse, and it’s over. The light from Pike’s symbol dies, slowly, like an iron cooling after being taken out of the forge.

A moment passes. And another. Disrespectfully quickly, a voice- a voice that snarls like Orthax, condescends like Ripley, but more than the two of them, sounds like his own- has awoken in his mind; _It hasn’t worked._

 _Shut up,_ is his eloquent response, as he closes his eyes against the resurfacing memory of shattering glass _ _ _.___ _Shut up._

But of course, Pike and Keyleth can do this- have done this, and the only new variable- he digs his nails into the stone- is ___him-___ because sometimes he can fix things, but he always _breaks people,_ what had he been thinking, _this is because of you, because you’re broken, because you were always broken-_

_Shut up, shut up, shut up-_

Barely seconds pass, but truth be told, he has mostly given up when-

A weak, childish cough, and the boy sits up, still-bloody hands going up to cradle his head.

“What happened?” He asks, hoarsely.

Pike makes a half-pained, half-relieved noise, sagging where she sits, as Keyleth leans in, murmuring comforting words, pressing healing hands to the new scar on his chest. Percy hesitates, watching them, and then looking to Pike, brushes the hair out of her eyes. She smiles tiredly at him, blinking dazedly, and feeling heat blossoming at the back of his neck, he pulls his hand back.

“Six years of Celestial,” he finds himself saying, because underneath the tiredness she is still looking at him with that excruciating fondness that he can feel in his _throat-_ “And when are you ever going to use it? It finally pays off.” Every word comes out unsteady, and still smiling, she says;

“Thanks for helping, Percy.”

And Gods, of course she would be thanking him when it should be the other way around- he stares at her, and she doesn’t get it- how could she? He swallows painfully, does his best to return her smile, and what else can he do?

“That was lovely, thank you.” He tells her, infinitely inadequate.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to unsubtle guy on a plane, who read most of it over my shoulder, and seemed very confused. Here's to you buddy.
> 
> Come find me on tumblr! @exhaustedwerewolf


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